In a telephone conferencing system, a digital communication network such as the Internet is used to establish and control the telephone connections between multiple conferees with the telephone network being the means of exchanging verbal information. Each conferee may have a computer connected to the digital network, and each has an independent telephone instrument connected to the public switched telephone network. An in-charge conferee utilizes his computer containing appropriate software to initiate the conference and to control the participation of the conferees. The in-charge conferee sends digital control signals to a switch interface controlling a telephone switch as a gateway to the telephone network using ss7 control signals. These ss7 control signals include the commands by which the conferee telephones are rung up, brought on line, or dropped from the conference. The switch provides telephone status information back over the digital network, and the in-charge conferee, as well as other conferees provided with appropriate software, display this status information on their PC monitors.
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1. A method for handling status information about a telephone conference having two or more conferees, at least one conferee using a telephone on an ss7 controlled network comprising:
receiving at a switch interface a message containing at least one number corresponding to a selected telephone on the ss7 controlled network to be rung up and brought on line for the conference;
sending from the switch interface via an ip network a message indicating the selected telephone has been successfully brought on line for the conference;
receiving at the switch interface via the ss7 controlled network an ss7 message containing information indicating a disconnect of the selected telephone from the conference; and
sending from the switch interface via the ip network a disconnect message responsive to said ss7 message.
6. A method for handling status information about a telephone conference having two or more conferees, at least one conferee using a telephone on an ss7 controlled network, the method performed at a switch interface comprising:
receiving a message containing at least one number corresponding to a selected telephone on the ss7 controlled network to be rung up and brought on line for the conference;
receiving via the ss7 controlled network an ss7 message that characterizes ringing;
receiving via the ss7 controlled network an ss7 message that characterizes an off-hook condition;
sending via an ip network a message indicating the selected telephone has been successfully brought on line for the conference;
receiving via the ss7 controlled network an ss7 message containing information indicating a disconnect of the selected telephone from the conference; and
sending via the ip network a disconnect message responsive to said ss7 message containing information indicating the disconnect.
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This application is a continuation of application Ser. No. 10/087,671, filed Mar. 1, 2002, and now U.S. Pat. No. 6,661,779, which was a continuation of application Ser. No. 09/819,079, filed Apr. 30, 2001, and now U.S. Pat. No. 6,480,474, which was a continuation of application Ser. No. 09/587,080, filed Jun. 3, 2000, and now U.S. Pat. No. 6,266,328, which was a continuation-in-part of application Ser. No. 09/212,786, filed Dec. 16, 1998, and now U.S. Pat. No. 6,072,780, which was a continuation-in-part of application Ser. No. 08/918,564, filed Aug. 22, 1997, now abandoned which claimed the benefit of priority pursuant to 35 U.S.C. §119 of Provisional Application 60/024,592, filed Aug. 26, 1996.
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to telephone conferencing, and in particular to dial up telephone conferencing utilizing computer control.
2. Description Relative to the Prior Art
In the art, it is known that telephone conferences may be implemented through “conferencing centers” provided as a service by local and long distance telephone companies. A list of telephone numbers of the conferees and the date and time at which the conference is to begin is supplied to a conference center operator who performs the dialing operations to bring the conferees simultaneously on line to initiate the conference. This technique is limited by the necessity of setting up a relatively inflexible forum in which all participants must be designated in advance, and the inclusion and reliance upon outside telephone company personnel to implement the conference.
A more recent form of conferencing utilizes digital networks such as the Internet that are publicly accessible by individual computers (typically PCs) via Internet Relay Chat (IRC) hosts.
The conferees come on line and are interconnected by means of the host, and may utilize software which allows fully duplexed communication between the PCs. Typically, the conference is conducted with the exchanged information visually appearing on the individual PC display screens. In more sophisticated applications allowing audio communication between the conferees, additional hardware is required at each PC site. A microphone and analog to digital converter provide digitized audio input to a PC by means of appropriate software, such as commercially available VocalTec software, and the audio output is derived from the digital information transmitted over the Internet by use of a digital to analog converter feeding a speaker. Encryption software may be employed to “scramble” the digital information transmitted via the network, but all potential conferees must be provided with this software, and must be alerted to the fact that it is being used. Hence, a conference of multiple conferees requires additional hardware and software at each PC site in order to implement a conference by means of the Internet.
The invention will be described with respect to the drawings, which:
Referring to
Anyone of the conferee stations 10, 12, 14, possessing a PC, may be designated as Conference Meister. For convenience of explanation, it is assumed that conferee station 14 is designated as Conference Meister. To implement this designation, PC 26 of conferee station 14 is provided with additional software which allows PC 26 to communicate with the switch interface 33 both to control the telephone switch 34 and to receive status information from the telephone switch 34, via the Internet 30.
The Conference Meister station 14 and the switch interface 33 communicate over the TCP/IP transport layer of the Internet 30 using the Internet's User Datagram Protocol (UDP) with checksum. A common fixed-length interprocess message called the Conference Protocol Data Unit (CDPU), using the software format further described below in Table I, is exchanged between the Conference Meister 14 and the switch interface 33, in the data field of a UDP-Datagram. The switch interface 33 converts the CDPU into Signalling System 7 (SS7) commands which act on the switch 34, and attendantly, on the telephone network 32 to control the conferees telephones 20, 24, 28, 17. SS7 is an internationally recognized telephony standard of 255 commands for controlling telephone calls via switch 34 using standard lookup table procedures. The switch interface 33 interacting with the switch 34 may be implemented incorporating a standard micro-computer such as a Motorola 68705P5 performing the table lookup translation of SS7 commands into CPDU commands stored in its ROM memory. It will be noted that the switch interface 33 is bi-directional, and telephone connection status information as established by the switch 34, i.e. ringing, off-hook, on-hook busy, for all participants is transmitted back via the Internet to the Conference Meister for icon display on his PC.
All fields in the CPDU are ASCII character fields. The CPDU consists of 32 bytes of data as follows:
Session ID/
Conference ID/
Command/Response Code/
Data/
4 bytes
2 bytes
2 bytes
24 bytes
The Session ID and Conference ID fields contain administrative “housekeeping” information. The Command/Response Code field indicates the message type and the message meaning. Parameters of the Data Field are fixed length subfields and depend upon the message type. Detailed descriptions of the Command/Response Code field are shown below in Table I.
TABLE I
Code
Command
Response
Meaning
HE
✓
HELLO. Conference Meister's
Request for Session-Id
LO
✓
LOGON. The Switch Interface's
response to a Conference Meister's
HE (Hello) assigning him his
temporary Session-Id, and
signaling him to logon.
LO
✓
LOGON. A Conference Meister's
logon. information giving user id,
password, and account number in
the data field.
RS
✓
RESOURCES. The Switch Interface's
acceptance of a Conference
Meister's LO (Logon)
EC
✓
ESTABLISH CONNECTION. A
Conference Meister's request that
a specified telephone number be
connected to a conference.
SU
✓
SUCCESS. The Switch Interface's
response to an EC (Establish
Connection) request. If
successfully completed. It
returns a connection-id used to
refer to this members conference
connection.
FA
✓
FAIL. The reply sent when LO
(Logon) or EC (Establish
Connection) fails. Failure
details are carried in the data
field.
DC
✓
DISCONNECT. A request from the
Conference Meister to disconnect
a conference members connection,
or to terminate a conference
(disconnect all member connections
on the conference).
DC
✓
DISCONNECT. An unsolicited
response from the Switch Interface
notifying the Conference Meister
that a conference members
connection has been disconnected.
ST
✓
STATUS. This command is the
Conference Meister's means of
maintaining and reconstructing its
conference information in the face
of dropped connections and
unreliable datagram transmissions.
ST
✓
STATUS. The Switch Interface's
reply to a Conference Meister's
status request.
ER
✓
ERROR. This is the reply used to
signal invalid message parameters,
such as Session-Id.
IH
✓
✓
I'M HERE. This message confirms
that Conference Meister and Switch
Interface are still in contact
during intervals when there is no
command/response traffic between
them.
In the above description of the invention, the Conference Meister 14 initiates the conference. By providing CDPU software to the other conferees, the invention allows any other one of the conferee stations, i.e. 10, 12, to serve as a Conference Meister.
The functional interrelation of the elements of the system illustrated in
In a second embodiment of the invention, the system of
Referring to
Anonymity of the caller is preserved by the invention even when the calling party has automatic numbering identification (ANI) or “Caller ID”. Since the system makes all its connections to the called party via the call-back technique from the remote switch 34 under control of the “conference meister” software, the only records of all the connected telephone numbers are recorded at the switch 34, including the number of the calling party. This occurs because the caller or “conference meister” is also one of the call-back numbers. Each connection is shown as a separate call on the inter-office telephone control (SS7) software originating from the switch 34, not from a calling party's telephone. The switch 34 can have an anonymous telephone number assigned as the originating number. Alternately, the calling party can designate some other listed number for ANI sending or Caller ID purposes which would key the called party as to who is calling.
With the anonymous option, no traceable record of a call is available locally. This minimizes industrial espionage at hotels, customer offices, and even private homes where merely the fact that certain parties made a call could be valuable information. The proper legal authorities can always get the full records from the central switch 34 if need be to document who initiated the call, and which telephones were called.
In a third embodiment, the call-back system can be expanded to include an advertising feature. Referring to
It will be noted that the displays 40, 40′ are to be implemented in various colors, and that the selection by clicking on any portion of the display will be highlighted in a manner known in the computer art.
The invention has been described in detail with particular reference to preferred embodiments thereof, but it will be understood that variations and modifications can be effected within the spirit and scope of the invention. For example, other data networks, such as a private intranet rather than the Internet, may be used for digital data communication among the conferee PCs, as well as other telephone signalling.
Johnson, Jr., Clark E., Solomon, Richard J., DeYoung, Tice F., Farber, David J.
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